Tower Drill
by Anotherjaneway
Summary: Station 51 becomes instructors for the day at the fire academy. An old nemesis makes a return play on Gage and DeSoto.


This is a text version of the original still airing imaged, music soundtracked story.

Emergency Theater Live, Episode Thirty Six

36. Tower Drill Season Five- Episode 36 Short summary-  
Station 51 becomes instructors for the day at the fire academy.  
An old nemesis makes a return play on Gage and DeSoto.

****WARNING**** The long summary to come is very story spoiling and will take away plot surprises if you read it now before reading the longer story below it.

Decide now if you want to read this episode's detailed summary before doing so.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Long Summary-  
Gage gets frustrated and storms off when the gang try to suggest that he needs a little help handling relationships with the opposite sex. Station 51 answers a person treed by an alligator call. Helpful postal workers and Les and Dave of animal control immobilize the gator while the gang sets up a life net in case the panicking woman fell. She does at a bad time and bounces partially out of the net, and onto the ground, injuring herself badly. Roy and Johnny treats her and uses a KED to protect her spine. They call in the Sierra Rescue rangers to fly her out. Station 51 returns from the call to a surprise visit from Fire Chief James O. Page and an old nemesis, ex-paramedic trainee Ed Marlowe. The chief asks Cap to sponsor Ed as an engineer's trainee in a new consideration. The gang has trepidations about the revisiting fireman and an order calling them to train cadets during the next Tower Drill session. Gage addresses his misgivings loudly in the office and Hank soon worries about his decision to accept the chief's request. Roy discusses the final firemen's test with his class and Ed makes sure to voice his opinion on matters clearly. Marlowe drives a course of cones in an engine while Gage runs a smoke exposure without scba drill. Cap is running a group of cadets through the drill tower when one of the young recruits panics and falls out a window when a sprinkler system fails. Marlowe effects a miraculous rescue using a rope and a ladder truck bucket. Chet pulls a joke by leaving a whoopie cushion under the fire chief's chair. Chet effects a tower recon from the ground in full scba and an infrared camera team. Hank coaches his recruits to safety. The chief gets his joking revenge on Chet by using some handy recruits.  
Ed Marlowe divulges his bungee leap rope knotting secret to Gage before parting on good terms with the entire gang for his new career as an engineer at 110's.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

The Story Unfolds..

Season Five, Episode Thirty Six.  
Tower Drill Debut Launch: August 1st, 2006.

*  
From: "Derrick"  
Date: Thu Aug 3, 2006 3:05 am Subject: The Morning Blues

The crew of Station 51 had reported in for their tour of duty on a sunny but cool, spring day in the Los Angeles area. It had just thunderstormed two days earlier, which forced a rainout of a Dodgers vs. Giants game at Dodger Stadium to which Chet and Marco had planned to go.

They were still less than happy about it.

"I don't know how come is it, when we go to a ballgame, that it always rains." Marco complained to Chet.

"Well, consider it this way, pal. You can't stop mother nature from doing her thing. I guess we'll have to go some other time when the weather gets a little nicer." Chet emphasized with a shrug.

"Who wants to see them lose again anyway?" Chet added. "It seems that everytime we go, they lose!"

They watched with growing bemusement as Johnny Gage came into the kitchen, wearing a sulken face, grumbling.

Chet looked up and asked. "What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong? I'll tell you what's wrong, Chet. My whole love life is wrong!" Johnny told him.

"Oh, really?" asked Marco. "What happened to you?"

"Before I knew it, Sue dumped me after our date Friday night and gave me the third degree about it.... Telling me that I'm a- a- a loser .  
and a perpetual slob. And then she had the nerve to call me a liar when I told her that all of that wasn't usually true. All I said to her was that I had been working a lot of overtime.."

Marco snickered and shook his head in sympathy during Johnny's conversation while he exchanged 'what else is new?' looks with Chet.

Chet rubbed his chin. "Johnny, you need help there. I mean, you really need...'help.' " he suggested gently, drawing finger quotes in the air meaningfully.

Gage blinked a few times, until the suggestion sank in.  
"Are you telling me that I should go see a shrink?" Johnny snapped.

Chet immediately looked away at the glare Johnny shot him when the dark haired paramedic fired back at him in offended ire.

"Maybe that will be the best thing for you, partner." said Roy as he entered the kitchen, just overhearing the conversation.

"All right. Ok...All right. I hear ya. Then, I'm.. I'm..crazy." Johnny told them all, throwing up his hands. "You all think that I am crazy? Well, I'll show you who's crazy by the time our shift ends. And Chet, you and Henry are..are just plum crazy, too!" Gage said as he pointed to the dog on the couch, who seemed to turn his head away from Johnny as if ignoring him.

Then Captain Stanley walked in, barely avoiding a shoulder check with Gage as the angry paramedic barged out of the room and stormed on past him for the quiet sanctuary of the vehicle bay.  
Cap asked the obvious without even looking up from the daily mail he was sorting through. "What's been going on here?" he asked matter of factly. "Do I sense a little unhappiness in the air?"

"Just a little." sighed Roy, taking another sip of coffee from his mug.

"Oh. Coming from Gage? That's normal." Hank shrugged as he sat down in a chair to finish his filing.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photos: None.

*  
From : Rampartbase  
Date: Wed Aug 2, 2006 11:45 am Subject: See you later, alligator.. In a while, crocodile... Heh.

It remained a nice sunny day for the rest of the morning.

The crew at 51's were doing their usual chores and were about to have lunch soon, when the tones sounded.

##Station 51. Man treed by an alligator at Harper Park. 1100 Santa Monica Blvd. 1100 Santa Monica Blvd. Cross street,  
Watercreek. Be aware. Animal control has been notified and they've responded that they are unequipped to capture it.  
Time out: 11:06.##

Captain Stanley acknowledged the call. On the way, he picked up the mic and said. "L.A., Engine 51. How big is the gator?" he deadpanned seriously.

The reply came back. ##Eyewitnesses have estimated its length at six feet.##

"10-4." Cap hung up the mic derisively. Then Hank said to his crew. "We have to be really careful."

"Thanks for telling us. I don't think we could have figured out that one by ourselves, Cap." joked Chet as he jogged by Cap to put on his turnout and helmet from the stow.

Hank made a face and threw a 'get in there' thumb gesture at his wise cracking fireman.

They rolled out.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Photos: None.

*  
From: "Roxy Dee"  
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 18:33:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: That Loyal Postal Stick-It-To-It-Ness~~

Station 51 rolled through the regional park's entrance, code three.  
Surprisingly, a Los Angeles County animal control unit, wasn't there yet.

A scream rippled out. It was female and very, very panicked.

The gang rushed out of their trucks, pausing at the edge of the parking lot to get their bearings on where the scream came from, but it didn't repeat.

Then a sharp eyed Gage spotted their subject on a tree limb.  
It was a girl in her mid twenties, hysterically mute and trembling. "There, Cap. Near the eucalyptus. Forty feet to our ten o'clock. That ain't no man. I wonder who call THAT in?" Johnny said, snatching out rope coils and life belts for himself and Roy.

"Maybe it treed more than one victim.." Roy shrugged.

"Eh,.. the number of victims aside, I wanna know where that alligator got to." Cap said empathetically, eyeing the ground and the thick grass surrounding them along the lake's margin. He could just make out the remains of a shredded german shepard lying just off the jogging path.

"Stoker and I'll go look." Marco volunteered.

"Be careful. Don't these things like to charge thirty miles an hour out of the water when they want something to eat real bad?" Cap asked him.

"I'm trying not to remember that.." Stoker frowned. "Don't think a charged firehose is the answer for this one."

Chet did the only other thing he could do. He grabbed out a bullhorn for Hank.

Cap snatched it up and turned it on. ##Miss, this is the Los Angeles County Fire Department. We see you. Just hold still until we figure out a way to get you down from there, o.k.?##

If the woman heard, she wasn't answering, petrified as she was.  
Then she started panting and looking wildly around desperately when she jerked at a sound that only she heard.

"She's gonna fall for sure, Cap. She's panicking again!" Johnny said, running for the tree along with Lopez and Marco.

Roy got off the engine's radio. "We can't get a snorkle, Cap. L. A. says they're all busy at fire calls for the next forty five minutes to an hour."

Hank thought a moment, then he pulled out his handy talkie. "Engine 51,  
L.A., respond a Sierra rescue team to our location. We've a young woman trapped thirty feet up a pine tree. Code three."

##L.A., Engine 51. Sierra Bravo has been notified. Their ETA is five minutes by air. ##

Roy just looked at him. "Park rangers?"

"Why not?" Cap replied. "They're good with trees, wild animals,  
and search and rescues. Go get the life net and back up the others in case she topples outta the tree."

"Right.." grinned DeSoto, peeling off his turnout. He ran with the folded encircled catch net quickly.

Cap soon became aware of four state personnel in blue running down the hill from the direction of the neighborhood houses on the cliff row above them. They were postal people, complete with their tan canvas and bright flourescent orange handled mail bags. One of them had a portable scanner radio in hand. "Hold it, hold it.. Where do you think you're going?" he asked them.

"To go help. Marve said he was in trouble with an animal on his route." said one man. "We always drop whatever we're doing to get a fellow postman out of danger."

"Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Marve's a postman? What's he doing in the park?"

A hefty, African-American woman answered him, sternly. "Taking a short cut.  
Now are we gonna hem and haw about this all day or our we gonna do something for that poor girl?" she said, throwing a careless hand up at the woman she spotted in the tree.

Right then, another dusty postman ran out of the bushes and joined them.

"Marve! You ok?" the mail woman asked. "We came fast as we could."

"I'm fine. I couldn't do anything for the jogger's dog. The alligator was too big."

"Where is it now?" Hank asked, pulling off his work gloves.

"Right over there. About fifty feet. It's facing the girl's tree from the shallows." Marve pointed.

"All right. Go back there and keep an eye on it, would ya?"  
Cap thought for a moment, then remembered the safety net's need for at least eight to hold onto it safely. "The rest of you,  
circle around in the open and catch up with my men and take a hold of the life net." They started moving. "But get there moving away from the water!" Cap reinforced.

Just as Cap was about to join them, Les Taylor and Dave Gordon from animal control arrived,.. empty handed.

"Where's your tranquilizer gun?" he asked them.

"Sorry, captain. An alligator's not a tiger. It can't be tranquilized the way you think." replied Dave.

"Why is that?" Hank demanded, irritated and worried for his people and the victim.

Les shrugged. "It's just their metabolism and the way that their blood flows.  
We've eyeballed it. It's a male, and it's lean. It's probably starving."

Dave added more. "Being sick like he is, his metabolism is so low that if we tranquilize him, he'll probably drown after being darted."

"Then let's kill it." Cap snapped. He frowned when the two officers in front of him looked at each other."Why hesitate?" he asked them.

"American alligators are a protected species. We've been ordered to capture it with traps and take it alive." Dave shrugged.

"That's raising the risk for all of my men and those helping them."

"Sorry, sir. Only the police can overrule our supervisor for a use of lethal force." Les told him.

"All right. Ok.." Cap said. "Let's see what we can do with what we've got then, shall we?" he said impatiently when he realized that the PD was nowhere in sight.

All three men soon joined the firemen and the four postal workers around the net. Half of them had their backs to the net while they hung onto it, being lookouts, while Gage climbed the tree with a nimbly tossed rope.  
He was moving slowly so that he wouldn't alarm the girl.

Roy spoke softly. "Miss,.. my partner's on the way up to you. It's ok. We..we know where the alligator is exactly and it's not gonna hurt you." he said with convincing confidence.

The girl didn't seem to hear him. She kept mumbling a dog's name over and over again, her eyes dry and shocked. Her hands kept slipping on the bark where her cheek rested as cold sweat drenched her. Once, both of her palms slipped and she let out a yelp as she scrambled to keep her balance along the branch.

"Don't worry about falling. We'll catch you.." said Hank. "We've got a net just below you. Do you see it?"

The girl didn't react. She only gripped the branch tighter.

"I'm almost there..." Gage grunted to the others down below. "Keep her distracted.  
If she moves too much here, she might miss the net before we can correct for it."

Suddenly, there was a massive sound of hissing and an explosion of water erupted from the lake.

"Look out!" Dave shouted as the still hungry, large alligator charged them.

Before the firemen reacted, the five postal workers let out a holler of their own and in a blink, they all leaped on the alligator's body, pinning its head, and very dangerous thrashing tail.

Hank's mouth dropped open as Les ran to help them with a stout roll of duck tape and a thick length of rope.

"Oh, my..." Cap gushed, not wanting to let go of the net he still held with Dave, Marco,  
Roy and Chet. The net wavered in the wind blowing off the lake and it was very difficult for the few of them who were left to stay under the tree and in a good position.

Stanley eyed the ball of postal workers and the animal control officer, tangling with the thrashing alligator. "They're all nuts. Absolutely nuts!" he exclaimed.

Gage let out a shout of dismay that suddenly grabbed Cap's attention.  
Hank whipped his head back to what he was doing.

The woman was falling towards the ground, off center to the net.

Hastily, the five firemen and Dave shifted the net desperately to encompass her,  
but they succeeded in only catching the girl's upper body as she landed partially in the net. Her waist and lower back pinwheeled over the edge of the lifenet's frame and she somersaulted vertically, feet up, before she hit the grassy ground hard.

Panicking, and in pain, the young woman sat up and was immediately halted by Roy, who grabbed her from behind. "Easy. Don't move! You'll only hurt yourself further." he warned into her ear firmly.

"B-but..the alligator..He--he...*gasp*.. ohhhHH!" she grunted, feeling something broken inside. Her face paled and began to turn blue. She gurgled into silence,  
still horribly conscious.

"Johnny, go get the backboard! Marco?!" DeSoto shouted.

"I'll get the gear.." Lopez answered.

"I'll help." Chet added.

"On the fly.." Gage punctuated as he slipped down his rope hanging from the tree to go aid his partner. He knew the girl had been seriously, grieviously hurt as clearly as Roy did. He knelt to help DeSoto stabilize her head and airway where she sat upright on the ground. "What can you tell?"

"I don't know." Roy answered him. "Might be her spine, or ribs. I'm feeling blood soaking into my shirt." he said hoarsely.

Johnny knelt down.

Cap knelt near. "Anything I can do? The alligator's no longer an issue. He's tied up."

"Get that chopper in here faster. She's going critical. And get us Rampart in a relay." Roy told him.

"You got it, pal." Stoker said, running for the road.

Sighing in sympathy, Cap handed DeSoto an active resuscitator on demand feed to give to the woman so she would get as much oxygen into her system as she could take.

He could see that she was still drawing breaths on her own; short,  
painful efforts that frighteningly didn't seem like they were going to last much longer. ::This is bad. And we still have to immobilize her.:: Cap thought. ::Oh, no.. She's got that thousand yards stare already.:: he worried mentally.

Knowing that there wasn't much he could do yet, Cap rose to his feet after nodding at Johnny that everything was coming as fast as it could get there.

Numb, he said the first thing that came to the top of his head.  
"Nice work, guys.." he said to the sweaty, grinning postmen who were rejoining him, one by one from the lakeshore.

Marve smiled. "Believe me, we always reap our revenge every chance we get. Have no fear of that."

"Do you guys always tackle hunger crazed alligators when they charge you like that?" Stanley wondered.

The chocolate skinned mail woman smiled. "You'd be surprised at what chases us at one time or another, fireman. This ain't nothing at all. Them pound boys are.. usually off chasing stray cats in trees or something, leaving us postal workers to fend for ourselves." she said, watching the two animal control officers who were checking and rechecking the gator's tied up legs and taped jaws carefully to see that they were truly secured.

"Now why would they do that?" Cap asked her.

"It's because we call em to get past all the dogs and other guard animals in people's yards all the time. Their vet says we drain their operating budget faster than a coke on a hot day. Doesn't seem to concern the LACoAC much that we think the mail must go through no matter what, know what I mean?" she laughed, still high on adrenalin.

Cap tried to smile, and couldn't.

The dark skinned woman noticed. "How's she doing?" she asked quietly, the glow of heroism slowly fading from her features.

"My paramedics are still checking her out. We'll know more here real soon." said Cap, looking down at the five firemen now crouched over the girl.  
"She's got some developing breathing problems starting up." he told the postal worker.

Silently, the postmen watched Station 51, while they worked to save a life.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Cap on the bullhorn, while Roy and Johnny watch.

Photo: Woman up a tree.

Photo: Cap holding a lifenet, calling up.

Photo: A fire department's lifenet view.

Photo: A prowling alligator.

Photo: Three postmen capturing a gator.

Photo: Cap in his helmet looking down near a mail woman.

Photo: Roy holding a woman's sshoulders on a street.

Photo: Sierra park rangers and the gang carrying stokes.

Photo: Gage running with a spine board.

From: "killashandrarey01"  
Date: Mon Aug 7, 2006 1:46 am Subject: Tacit Care..

Roy immediately started talking as he was holding the badly injured woman against his shoulder. "Ma'am,.. can you still hear me? Ma'am?"

The girl did not reply through her involuntary gasping.

"Hey!" Gage shouted to get her attention. He saw that her eyes were no longer focused. Johnny pinched her earlobe firmly. She didn't move. "She's going unresponsive, Roy." he murmured.  
"Marco, take control of her head with that jaw thrust. Stoker, an ambu would be real nice right about now. Help her on it when she needs it." he said,  
slipping in a lubricated nasopharyngeal airway into one of her nostrils.  
"Chet.. get a C-collar. Looks like she's a small regular." he said, feeling around her head and neck in a fast check.

Periodically, he looked at his palms, one at a time, searching for wet blood stains as he worked them down to her shoulders. "She's not bleeding from anywhere up here, Roy." he told his partner, who was setting up an EKG monitor.

DeSoto nodded, looking down at his own shirt to see where the large blood stain that he had felt soaking him earlier, was located. "Try her right lower back."

Cap gestured to his paramedics. "I'll get Rampart." Then he turned to the postal workers. "Could you folks help us out one more time?"

"Sure.. sure.. " said the dark skinned lady. "Anything you say, mister."

"Can one of you go grab a blanket packet out of the engine?  
They're yellow. Right rear compartment above the driver's back tire. Then turn around with your backs to us in a ring.  
We're gonna need some privacy for her. Seems we're already gathering ourselves a crowd of the curious here." said Hank, seeing more park goers arriving due to the unusual sight of the bound and taped alligator and the three flashing county trucks.

The post woman took one look at the shears Gage was using to get the girl's clothes off and nodded in immediate understanding. She put two fingers to her mouth and let loose a piercing whistle to catch the other chattering mailmen's startled attention. "Don't just stand there, Marve." she pegged her cohort. "Go get that cover up tarp for the little lady. As for the rest of you,.. about face, pronto, and don't let me catch you lookin' back over here even once." she ordered her coworkers like a bossy mother hen.

They obeyed her. Instantly.

"Don't you worry, captain. Nobody else is gonna get anywhere near her.  
And that's a promise from us." said the saucy, pleasant faced mail woman.

"Uh,, thank you.." said Stanley distractedly without looking up from where he crouched over the biophone case. "Rampart,.. this is Engine 51. How do you read?"

Roy and Johnny were deep into their initial assessment. Gage felt for carotid pulse quality on both sides of the woman's neck and then he compared them to those in both wrists. "Weaker radials bilaterally... but I'm feeling no cervical crepitus. She has no signs of jugular venous distension or tracheal deviation.. Resp rate's thirty, very shallow, and intermittent."

"Got it." said Roy, taking notes. He had patched the woman in on limb leads so that they would have constant audible cardiac cues to listen to. And then he placed one of her fingers inside the wired pulse oximeter's soft rubber clamp.

"Ok, Chet, she's set for her collar...Let's get it on." Gage grunted as he ducked around Stoker's hands as the engineer started working the bag valve mask. "Then go get the KED ready, would ya? Marco's still got his hands full holding her. I'll probably be finished with her entire sweep by the time you get back."

"All right, Johnny." replied Kelly.

Soon, they were through and Chet took off for the engine's auto extrication equipment bay.

Gage continued to search for serious problems. "I've got a spreading bruise medial right chest..." he said, feeling and looking at the woman's skin. He stopped when one hand came away bloody. "There it is.. Lower right side, Roy. A penetrating wound with a single rib fracture into the abdomen.. The injury's fully below the diaphragm." he reported as he snatched out some bulky dressings to control the bleeding. He used many layers and taped them to her side firmly in a square to slow the heavy hemorrhaging. He moved on down each of the woman's arms and legs in turn in a careful check for other critically bleeding wounds, but he found none.

Quickly wiping his hands off on the woman's discarded shirt, Johnny got out a stethoscope for a fast chest/lung check. "Roy,..mid clavicular right is hyperpercussive with diminished breath sounds..." he said, catching his breath as he listened closely, "..But mid right axillary and all other lung fields are clear. Her heart sounds normal but it's not at the same rate as her pulse."

"What are you getting for a discrepancy?" DeSoto asked as he rechecked the pressure dressing Johnny had applied to see that it was still working.

"Apical: 136 and steady. But the 90 palp's irregular." Gage replied.

"Any other life threats?" Roy asked.

"No." Johnny told him as he placed the flat of two hands and pressed down lightly over all the areas of the woman's abdomen that he could reach with her as she was, sitting up on her scissors split open jeans and underwear. "Just where we know already. Right upper and right lower's firm and distended. Pelvis is stable." he said after gripping her hips with an inward pressure. The bones didn't shift even an inch. He looked at the woman's entire back with a pen light around Stoker knees and jacket flaps and he double checked himself when he felt her skin, too. "Yeah, nothing else.." he concluded. Then he added. "A change..Current LOC is causing incontinence." he said as an odor of urine and stool rose over the blood scent. "But there's no peritoneal or rectal bleeding."

"I'll tell Cap to relay what we have so far." Roy told Johnny.

Gage and Chet got busy with the Kendrick device.

Kelly opened the KED and placed it between Marco and the girl's back. He centered it and placed the wings of the immobilizer snugly under the woman's armpits while Gage tucked some padding at the small of her dusty neck where the head guard didn't rest. Then Johnny fastened the chest straps, taking care that it didn't interfere with Stoker's ability to get good chest rise with his ventilations. "Is she breathing on her own?" he asked the engineer.

"Only trying one out of every three now." Stoker replied.

"Keep at it, but don't hyperventilate her at all."

Mike nodded. "I'm watching her sat's.." he said, throwing a head at where he could see the numerical readings renewing themselves on the screen of the EKG monitor. "Heart rate's still steady. 136.  
PO2's 98%"

"If her tachycardia's no longer felt at the carotid, let me know." Gage said.

"I sure will. I see that Cap's got the defibrillator on active stand by."

Chet slid two straps under the girl's thighs and wrapped them over each leg before he snugged them tightly at both ischial grooves.

Then they secured the woman's head against the KED's head rest and placed the secondary straps over her forehead and chin once she was confirmed as being placed well centered to vertical.

Marco still held onto the woman's head. "Airway's good. Are we ready to place her on the board?"

"Yeah.." said Johnny, as he stood up to grip a side handle on the cradle of the KED with one hand. The other, he placed under one of the woman's knees.

Chet got set positioning himself on the opposite side to help with the transfer after he was through tying the woman's hands together with a gauze bandage. He paused when his shifting accidently jarred the woman's left arm. It bent into a sudden second elbow just below the shoulder. "Ahh! Broken left humerus." he announced, holding it quickly above and below the break to stop its falling, flopping movement.

"Must be a real clean break if I didn't feel that. We'll splint it in route." Gage told him. "Just place that arm neutral enough so that a pulse's always felt in that hand with her arm supported."

"Ok, I'm set." Kelly said a few seconds later when he checked circulation.

Locking their arms together underneath her, the gang lifted and then carried the woman over to the long board lying on the ground. Carefully, the three firemen lowered her flat onto it and strapped her in after covering her up snugly with the shock sheet Cap had obtained from the engine. They left the woman's wounded side exposed to the air so they could monitor the pressure dressing's continuing effectiveness.

Chet did one more aid by propping up the woman's boarded head on a gear box to ease her manually helped respirations. "There you go, Stoker. She should vent nice and easy for you now."

"That works." said Mike, watching her color closely as he bagged her.

Cap lifted his head. "I've got Brackett on the line!" he shouted.

Roy tossed Cap his notepad. "Cap,.. she's a 'load and go'. Tell them the NPA and that jaw thrust are doing the job ok even though her Glasgow's seven. And I found a wallet." DeSoto said as he bent down to do a blood pressure on the woman's unbroken arm.  
"Catch.." he said, throwing that over, too.

"Will do." said Hank, receiving it. "Sierra Bravo's ETA is three minutes.."  
Then he turned back to the biophone. "Rampart. I have more patient info." he said, leafing through the girl's wallet cards. "Our victim's twenty five with no prior medical problems or allergies." he concluded after reading a few of them. "As I said before her mechanism of injury was a thirty foot fall out of a tree to soft grassy ground after bouncing out of a fire department life net. Status: Unconscious, nonreactive to pain. She is being partially breathing assisted on oxygen and is doing well with just an NPA and jaw thrust. She's got a large, open wound lower right quadrant lateral to the hip with a penetrating rib break into the abdomen. External bleeding has been controlled. She's a second bruise on her upper right chest with slightly diminished superior right lung sounds. Broken left humerus. All extremity pulses are palpable. She is spinally immobilized with a KED on a longboard and is being treated for shock. Stand by for the vitals signs.." Captain Stanley told Rampart.

##Standing by..## answered Kel Brackett from the base station.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photos: None.

*  
From: "patti keiper" Date: Thu Aug 10, 2006 7:30 pm Subject: Turnabout Intruder..

DeSoto looked up and supplied Stanley with the information Brackett wanted. "BP is 72 over 50. Pulse is 144 and regular. Respirations unassisted are now holding at 10, irregular and shallow. Skin is pale, diaphoretic and cool at the extremities. Pupils are slightly dilated but reactive to light. Glasgow is nine. Bilateral Babinski's: normal. Distal pulses are equal in all four despite that closed fracture in the left arm, now realigned in a position of function. EKG 's showing still viable V-tach and the digital PO2 is 96% on 15L of O2 on ambu. Breath sounds are the same still, with that extremely localized mild rhonci. Estimated 900 cc's blood loss externally from the abdominal wound."

Kel Brackett nodded, tapping the glass with a knuckle in a hint to get Dixie to enter the glass enclosed base station just as Cap was parroting back Roy's information over the biocom.

She had been pulling out a blank stat chart for him for his patient to begin a surgical workup, knowing the young woman to be a trauma case from the nature of the radio traffic going on between L.A. Headquarters, over the fire department scanner near her head, and with the regional park's county rescue services branch.

McCall opened the door just as the emergency room physician was finishing his initial orders. "51, start two large bore intravenous lines of Lactated Ringers in the uneffected arm and run wide open until she's reached effective homeostasis with an upper systolic of 90, auscultated. Don't waste time performing an RSI. Use the addition of an OP if you have to, to maintain her airway in transit. Time is of the essence. Splint all unstable joints later.  
Send me a twelve lead EKG once you're on your way, and I want additional vitals sets every five minutes. What's your current ETA?"

Dixie quickly joined him. "What do you have, Kel?"

"Traumatic fall, with a major disruption of a body cavity involving a rib fracture, with possible internal bleeding. So far, she's minus a head injury without any glaring pulmonary or cardiac symptoms and with one, apparently simple, broken humerus."

##Rampart, ETA is eight minutes by air. Coming in with Sierra Rescue to your flight pad.## reported Cap.

"10-4, 51. Get her in here as soon as possible and notify me en route of any profound neurological or respiratory changes." Dr. Brackett said, thumbing the talk button.

"What now, Kel?" Dixie asked him, anticipating.

"I want to organize the care team prior to her arrival. Get two general surgeons on stand by to form the core of the trauma team. They'll be in close cooperation with us while a surgical room gets ready. I'll direct her further evaluation and resuscitation. Get a mid-level provider to manage her airway along with a respiratory therapist. I'll be conducting the primary and secondary surveys, and tell Dr. Early he'll be performing other procedures as needed. I'll leave monitoring her vital signs to you along with drawing bloods for her lab work. I also want an orthopedic surgeon as an immediate consultant as well as the neurosurgeon on-call. I want to make sure her C-spine's truly intact or at least determine any new disability with a complete motor examination performed before surgery." Kel told Dixie.

"I'll get right on it."

"As soon as she gets in here, I'll want a foley in along with a gastric tube to simplify things in prep for her anesthesia as soon as she's been airway secured by our therapist. Oh, and let's stave off any iatrogenic hypothermia with additional warmed IV fluid, blankets, heat lamps, and a heated, air-circulating blanket. Order up an anteroposterior chest radiograph, a focused abdominal sonogram, a full C-spine series and get films of that left arm. If the room's open, order a CT scan of the abdomen with intravenous contrast. But those spinal pictures first, so we can get her off the long board before surgery."

"I'm assuming you want arterial blood gases, a type and cross match, and baseline work on her hemoglobin and hematocrit levels?" Dixie blinked.

"Yep." Kel smiled.

"And how about a dipstick urinalysis to exclude occult hematuria?"

"That, too." he grinned. "You know me too well, Dix, you know that?"

Then his stomach growled. Loudly.

"Umm hmm.." Dixie nodded without batting an eyelash. "Do me a favor, Kel. Let Dr. Morton handle the next paramedic call when it comes in. You haven't had your lunch yet and you definitely look it." she pegged, with a finger stabbing the ornate tie peeking out of his white lab coat. "And neither have I, for that matter." she reconsidered.

"Boosting our mutual blood sugars will be on me just as soon as we've seen 51's patient safely into a surgical ward." Brackett promised.

"My kind of guy." she winked. "I'll put her in One." Dixie said, disappearing out the door again.

Dr. Brackett hunkered down with just a plain coffee to await his cardiac strip sending from Roy and Johnny. ::Hunger's relative they say. In more ways than one.:: he thought ruefully, admiring Dixie's departing back and efficient,  
thick bun just beginning to show graceful falling strands from underneath her paper white nurse's hat.

-  
The gang met up with the Sierra team when the park's BK-117 set down on a nearby hillside that proved free of obstructing pine trees and surprise daytime heating downdrafts. The red helmeted rangers met the firemen with an extra large stokes to accommodate the fallen woman's long board so Station 51 could follow with their medical gear piled up in one of their own.

Both Roy and Johnny chose to fly into Rampart with the rapidly stabilizing woman, and soon, they were on their way, quickly buzzing over the cityscape of suburban Carson.

-  
The engine and squad reported that they were available in quarters an hour after that. Captain Stanley found that they had returned home, to chaos.

Chief James O. Page, was waiting for them all, in full department regalia,  
standing by the large county wall map.

Hastily, the gang abandoned helmets and jackets as they pulled in and everyone tried their best to rid themselves of the thick park dust that was still coating them.

Gage hid the bloodstains under his nails that the alcohol hadn't cleaned up properly as everyone scrambled to the mop cupboard to get their black inspection hats on in fast order. Then they lined up in stiff formation in the bay in front of the fire trucks and waited until Cap quickly got into his white one.

Captain Stanley strode forward in surprise. "Chief? You want to inspect the station? I thought Chief McConnikee had that detail this month."

"Your rumors were correct, Hank. But I'm not here for that so please, everybody,  
just relax. I'm here for another reason. I'm here to ask you all to do me a personal favor." said Page.

"Oh? And what's that?" Cap asked his boss.

"Do you remember a fireman named Ed Marlowe from last year? He rode with your boys in the squad for a bit while being evaluated for the paramedic program."

"How can we forget? He was a real cocky sort of hot head, wasn't he?" mumbled Chet under his breath to the others in line.."Glad he failed to make the grade."

Roy elbowed Kelly swiftly into silence before their all-seeing, easy going chief overheard him.

"I'm here to ask you, Hank, if Stoker could walk Fireman Marlowe through the engineer's program in a stint through your station."

The others' mouths gaped open. All except Hank's, who couldn't, because Page was still regarding him with a questioning expression. "Uh, chief.. uh, I'm sure he'd.. Stoker? You doing any off time in the next week?"

"No, sir. I'm available to train. Just give the word." Mike said surprisingly easily.

Stanley pegged his tillerman with a shoulder grasp and sputtered. "That's....entirely up to you. I-I- I.. know how busy you are studying for your potential upcoming promotion to lieutenant and all..."

"Cap, I'll do it." he said, nodding.

Page took in a big breath and sighed contentedly. "Great, Mr. Stoker. I knew you would. You're a good fireman." said the chief.

"That he is..." murmured Cap, trying to stomach a very old feeling of dread.

Page was oblivious. "You know this means that you'll all follow through and each take a turn teaching at the Fire Tower. This year's cadet class is about to start. Their beginning course work begins tomorrow in fact. I've already made arrangements for HQ to cover your work shifts to accommodate.." smiled Chief Page.

The gang didn't know what to say. But then Mike filled the gap neatly.

"When do I shadow Ed, chief? When he ships back into town?" Stoker asked, after swallowing bravely.

"I'm already here, boys." said a country sounding drawl, coming from the kitchen.

Ed Marlowe, the ex-Viet Nam medic and current firefighter, saundered into the garage.

He was wearing a brown denim jacket, complete with a rope tie, blue jeans and a cowboy hat. To the 51 gang's dismay, he had already helped himself to a sandwich from the refrigerator. "Hi, Mr. DeSoto. You know, I was real surprised the other month when you failed to recognize me when I helped you real estate shop for that new ranch house of Gage's." he chuckled. "I'm glad I finally got a chance to connect up those missing memory dots for you...Know what I mean?"

Then he began to laugh uproariously.  
Still standing in line, Roy DeSoto slowly took off his inspection hat, and he began to nurse a frown... big time.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Brackett and Dixie looking tired at the base station.  
Photo: Sierra rangers and the gang walking with stokes. Photo: Sierra rangers in a close rescue stokes carrying.  
Photo: Battalion chief closeup visiting Station 51.  
Photo: Gang in the midst of an inspection's scramble. Photo: Cap wearing an inspection hat in the vehicle bay.

Photo: Ed Marlowe in the squad with Roy and Gage.  
Photo: Ed Marlowe with a cowboy hat near Gage.  
Photo: L.'s fire training facility. Photo: New tower drill recruits jogging.  
Photo: Roy looking worried in the vehicle bay.

*  
From: Patti or Jeff or Cassidy Date: Sun Aug 13, 2006 7:56 pm Subject: The Negative Influence

Roy said the only thing he could under the circumstances and the chief's smiling gaze. "Welcome to Station 51....again." he said quietly, holding out his hand.

Ed tempered his gleeful enthusiasm and took the paramedic's handshake. "I promise I won't screw up so much this time. A fire engine's not like a person at all.... She can't be arm crippled, nor...misdiagnosed, now can she?" he grinned slightly, implicating everything. There was a slight smolder of old affront filling his eyes when he finally caught Gage's wary ones.

Johnny glanced over at Cap chatting the chief up. Both men had their backs turned away from the inspection line while they caught up on old times. Made of iron, Johnny refused to take Ed's thrust out, hose calloused hand. "Yeah, aren't we the lucky ones." he whispered. His tones were definitely not a question.

Kelly instantly matched Gage's expression, sliding over against his shoulder to take his side in unspoken support.

"Thank you, boys. Dissss-missed..." Hank's voice rang out when he realized his men hadn't broken ranks yet. "Chief, I'll get the paperwork ready and I'll send it in by on-call courier, right after we get the afternoon chores done."

Ed didn't move his hand. He still offered it in friendship to Johnny, even as his other one caressed a visitor excited Henry's head and back enthusiastically when the dog stood paws up against his jeans panted leg looking for a few affectionate pats.

Stoker cleared his throat as he leaned over and took Ed's palm instead, to end all of the quiet tension before it could be noticed by Cap or the chief. "Ed, why don't I show you where you can change into uniform so you can finish out the rest of the shift with us."

"My stuff's not here yet from the station house. My girlfriend was gonna go get my things and bring em over to me sometime tonight."  
Marlowe told him.

Mike shrugged. "You can borrow one of mine. We're about the same size I think."

Ed Marlowe went mild then.., the emotional guard that was never entirely up, fizzling away. "Thank you, Mr. Stoker. I really appreciate your station's warming hospitality.." said Ed, smoothly pushing past Johnny and an equally troubled Roy. For the first time, they all watched as the falsely bright smile disappeared off Marlowe's face.

They all caught the moment when his clean cut mouth fell into a second, eerily dangerous kind of steel.

They saw Ed throw the unfinished half eaten sandwich of his noisily into the garbage bin next to the door, where Henry couldn't reach it.

-  
Chief Jim Page left soon after making his reacquaintance with the rest of Hank Stanley's crew. It was apparent that Cap would have very little choice in the matter about taking Marlowe on again in what the chief mistakenly thought was just another kind of trainee routine for the over confident, visiting fireman.

Ed wasn't gone into the locker room a minute before Gage cornered Cap in his office. "Why weren't we notified in advance that he was coming? Cap, don't you know how this is gonna effect the rest of us?"

Hank didn't stand up to face the pissed off paramedic. He didn't need to. His voice was enough of a slap. "Is there a problem, Gage? If so, you'd better have all the facts before coming to me about him officially or unofficially. Let me remind you that Marlowe is still fully fire qualified. His captain says he's doing very good work according to this dossier; even good enough to earn a commendation or two." he said, holding up the state employee packet from HQ that Page had given him. "And until I see Ed performing otherwise with my own eyes, doing something contrary to departmental policy, I don't want you to step a single inch inside my office to harp about it. Is that clear?" Hank said firmly.

Surprised, Johnny drew himself up tall, at sudden attention. It looked horrible to Hank to see that with Gage still in his slightly crooked black inspection hat. "Yes, sir. As clear as crystal. Permission to go, sir."Johnny asked quietly formal with no rock hardness in his face at all past the new bright beam of hurt. ::In all my years, Cap has never denied me speaking my mind about anything.:: Gage thought privately, in shock.

Hank sighed hugely. "My ...my hands are tied on this, Johnny. I'm sorry.  
We....have to keep neutral about what we already know about the man. True,  
we were his testing paramedic preceptor station back then. But we have to treat this as if he's gonna be going right on through for the first time. It's an entirely different ability we're being asked to foster and examine here. And to tell you the truth, the pressure's entirely off you and Roy now. You two aren't fire engineers."

Still not locking eyes with his captain, and studying the wall where it met the tiled ceiling, Johnny said one more thing. "Do you think that's any comfort to Mike Stoker, Cap? He was there when Marlowe risked those patients' lives right along side of us. What makes you think that Marlowe's gonna act any differently when we're all *ss deep in a fire somewhere with him controlling things at the other end of our hoselines? Hate to break it to ya, Cap. But when those moments finally arrive, think about it. Those lives Marlowe's attitude targets next, are gonna be ours when he second guesses something stupid trying to get around Mike Stoker like he tried to get around me and Roy back then. Just how are you gonna feel about it when that grossly wrong moral character flaw of his rears up again, sir?"

Without waiting for word, Gage melted away into the shadows and was gone.

Hank sat still as Johnny's last words rang in his head like a bad alarm call.

Cap didn't pursue him to check his insuboordination at the root. For that root was now growing inside of himself mentally, through a tiny voice of conscience, whether he liked it, or not. The first kernels of doubt began to suffuse his thoughts.  
"We'll all be safe enough on scene and later at the Tower. Won't we?" he asked softly to himself.

Hank Stanley was not comforted by his thoughts and an invading migraine headache began to pound in his head soon afterwards. ::This is gonna be a very long week, I'm afraid.:: concluded his mind silently.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Ed Marlowe treating a man down with Roy and Johnny.

Photo: Gage in Cap's office, in conversation.

Photo: Cap and Stoker, paying close attention.

Photo: An engineer's panel.

Photo: A tower drill recruit, picking up a flaccid fire hose.

*  
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 14:10:51 -0700 (PDT) From: "Roxy Dee" Subject: Drill Tower Assignment Day~~ Johnny groaned as his clock radio went off yet again. ::Oh, man.  
Why did I ever join the fire department?:: he wondered as he rolled over onto his back and pulled the covers down around his ankles to finally get it over with.

The chill air of his bedroom clinched things fully for him in a solid dose of reality. ::These cadets of Page's today'd better be fast learners. Or else.:: he commiserated. :: I'm a fireman, not a drill sergeant. I don't plan on spending any more time at the academy,  
holding their hands, any more than I actually have to.:: he grumbled in his head.

Twenty minutes later, Gage had left the warm sanctuary of his sheets for the foggy, early morning grounds of Long Beach's infamous Tower Fire Academy. His assignment that day, was to show the latest class of cadets of the summer, all about the small tools and the finer survival arts of his department's self contained breathing apparatus gear, including exposing the recruits to the realities of raw fire smoke, unprotected. ::Now that's gonna be fun.:: he thought sarcastically. ::There's nothing like making sure cadets don't choke to death on ya when you're busy trying to prove a valuable point.::

Johnny felt very fortunate. It was Hank and Roy who had received the sucker end of the chief's mandatory instructor orders. They got the "honor" of conducting recruits through the cracked concrete maze of the much feared ten story drill tower. True, they would have the luxury of air bottles while the tackboard panels all around them were intentionally ignited one by one via remote control, but the whole exercise was designed to demonstrate fire behavior at its worst; with a very controlled, real seeming, but simulated, building flashover effect.

Needless to say, the drill cowed most cadets into one or two of their baser emotions, like panicking,.. inside the first five minutes, once the torching began. And it usually took a pair of larger sized, overseeing veteran firefighters to keep everyone, going through the live fire section, from ripping off their air masks during the worst of the terrifying heat's crawling.

Gage chuckled. ::At least, I got the lighter duty. Anyone who fails in my drill gets a fast shoulder carry outside to a guy waiting with a demand valve resuscitator... Heh. ::

Ed Marlowe was already deep into his part of things, driving the aerial ladder truck around the designated cones laid out in a frame, about the tower. He was training there for his engineer's test, in case a rescue was called by Cap or Roy for a recruit actively going ape.

::Please knock down a cone. Please.. Please..:: Johnny begged in a twisted sense of dark humor. But Marlowe remained annoyingly on track, clearing the narrow fourteen inch margins between them flawlessly. ::D*mn it, Mike. Quit being such a good teacher!:: the paramedic qualmed. Then he laughed at himself for his willful act of ill wishing at the station's current thorn-in-the-side. ::Why am I stooping to Ed's level? That's dumb.:: he chided himself privately.

Soon, the first of the recruits listed on his chart fell in at his table under the red and white striped and shaded roof canopy tent.

When he felt that a fair number of them had gathered, Johnny looked up. "Hi... Here for the smoke and tools session?" he asked brightly, finally putting all thoughts of Ed Marlowe firmly out of his mind.

Numerous nervous heads nodded.

Johnny smiled.::Their turnouts are so new, I can smell the rubber and retardant spray, from here.:: "Ok, let's get the show on the road.  
Now everybody take a book, a helmet that fits properly from over there, and then have a seat in one of these folding chairs. I've got a few preliminary health interview answers to get from each of you."  
he told them cheerfully. :: Huh... Glad I'm a paramedic and can conduct medical histories in my sleep. I'll worry about Ed later, when the live burn Tower drill finally starts.:: groused Gage mentally.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Photos: None.

*  
From: Patti or Jeff or Cassidy Date: Sun Aug 20, 2006 3:53 pm Subject: The Doubting Thomas..

Roy DeSoto was busy on the tarmac located across from the training tower's large lot. He had just acclimated his candidates to their scba gear,  
after sharing with them what the Tower would feel like once it was ignited around them. Surprisingly, he learned from the recruits,  
that the Tower wasn't their worst fear. It was actually the final testing details they needed to pass in order to become full fledged graduated firefighters that was really bothering them.

Smiling, Roy set a foot onto a chair's hinged base and bent over, casually crossing his arms as he relayed details. "The test consists of two timed sections. On the final test day, each candidate will be required to wear the following: a polo shirt, long pants, sweat pants, or exercise pants, but no shorts. Also, no shoes with open toes or heels. You'll be given a twenty pound weight vest, a turnout coat, a helmet with chin strap, gloves, and your previously fitted training scba to put on for the duration of the test. Watches and loose or restrictive jewelry are not permitted. You will be asked to leave those in your car.

"Candidates, while wearing the required gear, you will carry a 150 ft. high-rise hose bundle up a stairwell to the tenth floor of this Tower, read the pressure gauge located on the top landing, then return to your starting point. All candidates will then lower a hose bundle to the ground floor from the outside top most balcony using a hundred foot rope. Minimums for the stairs section: The time for your first-step-up to the last-step-off will be completed in under four minutes or less. Anything over four minutes is an automatic fail. The test is over.

"After completing the stairs test, the candidate will then assemble and disassemble a set of fittings chosen at random from the test engine waiting nearby on stand alert. Also, you may be tested on the following parameters:

"The candidate, while wearing all his required gear, will perform the following events, not necessarily in this order:

"Pull a charged 2- inch hose fifty feet, then discharge a full stream for thirty seconds at 100 PSI. Failure to drag the hose to the required distance results in an automatic fail. The test is over.

"Drag or carry an 180 lb. dummy seventy five feet. Failure to drag the dummy the whole distance is a fail, the test is over.

"Remove two randomly called for appliances from the engine apparatus and carry them both seventy five feet before setting them both down. Then you'll be asked to pick both appliances up again to carry everything back to the engine for restowing into their original compartments.

"Walk the extension ladder up this building using the hand over hand method, where you'll be asked to move to a nearby second secured ladder. Climb that second ladder to gain access to the immediate roof level. Your next move will be to rope, and then pull, a donut hose roll up ten stories to the roof where you are,  
in order to place the donut roll at your feet. Then you'll be asked to relower that same hose bundle back down to the ground.

"Using a Kaiser forcible entry simulator, you'll be asked to drive a 160 lb. beam back a distance of six feet using an eight pound maul tool. Failure to drive the beam the required distance in a suitable amount of time is a fail. The test is over.

"Ride in a bucket aerial to a height of one hundred fourteen feet and remain there for two minutes. If candidate says stop at any time in order to return to ground, it will be considered an automatic failure. The test is over...." Roy concluded. "And that's it. That's all there is to it. Are there any further questions about the final physical firefighter's exam?" he grinned.

None dared raise their hands.

"These physical tests are nothing compared to what you've probably already subjected yourselves to while working out before even coming here to the Academy.  
It'll be no sweat fellas. Really."

Finally one burly recruit inclined his head. "Have there been any female candidates admitted to the academy this year?"

Roy raised his eyebrows, completely surprised by the question. "Not yet. Although I have every confidence that there will be before the year's out because of the new employment equality stipulations that have been recently ratified by Fire Department Battalion Chief, James Page. It only makes sense that our female paramedics now undergoing medical training can enjoy the same opportunities to learn to fight fires along with the rest of us, wouldn't you agree?"

A voice from the back of the group spoke up. "I'd say that wouldn't be a very smart idea at all.." the masculine tone chided quietly. "The rest of us won't be able to ignore feeling like we'd have to watch out for all of them on the job. I for one, wouldn't like to have my life depending on a known to be physically weaker member."

Roy stood up, still keeping the cordial smile on his face as he shielded his eyes from the sun in order to see the one talking. Then he recognized who had spoken.  
"Mr. Marlowe." he acknowledged. "No one not physically able to pass the firefighter's test will ever be allowed to work in a county fire station so your concerns are unfounded to say the least. It might interest you to know that preliminary female fire fighter candidate testing has shown that women have significantly better stamina in the heat than men do. They also have better agility at greater speeds through tight quarters, too. Even fully laden."

"I didn't know that, sir." Marlowe buzzed with doubt. "But I'll have to see those kinds of performance results with my own eyes before I'll reserve any judgement if you don't mind my saying so." said Ed, leaning against the idling fire engine at the back of the group.

"You're entitled to your own opinion, engineer candidate." Roy said to Ed intentionally to reinforce his instructor's role relationship to the visiting fireman. Then he turned to the rest of his group. "Now... are we ready for the live fire drill?"

The recruit group fidgetted nervously, but all nodded yes.

"Then let's get the show on the road.." smiled Roy, reaching for his scba bottle.  
"Everybody, get into your bottles and report to the lieutenant at the back of the group for a thorough equipment check."

Behind him, Ed Marlowe tightened his helmet strap thoughtfully as he studied the fair haired paramedic. He never felt Mike Stoker's encouraging shoulder grip, telling him to get behind the engine wheel for the return trip back to the Tower to be the group's rescue resource back up.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Roy with coffee, lecturing.

Photo: Firemen climbing up an aerial ladder.

Photo: Recruits in scba testing on hose fittings.

Photo: A Tower instructor with two ladder recruits.

Photo: Firemen pounding mauls on sleds in a race.

Photo: Roy and an administrator looking up outside.

Photo: Fireman Ed Marlowe and Roy sharing words.

*  
From: Patti or Jeff or Cassidy  
Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2006 15:03:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: The Purifying Fire..

Gage helped the last recruit out of the smokehouse. "Now that wasn't so bad, Miller, now was it?" he said to the last red eyed, mucous draining, spittle smeared, panting cadet to come stumbling out of the test compartment. "Here, take a seat by me. You're a little bit more distressed than the others. We're just gonna get you to grab a snort or two off the D.V. before you get re-examined. Don't worry, nothing's wrong. I'm just covering my instructor butt like any good paramedic who finds himself in a teaching mode would."

The cadet gratefully accepted Johnny's helping arm as they got over to the first aid station that had been set up so cadet vitals signs could be checked at need for abnormal reactions over the course of the whole training day. "Bu--*choke*..but, did I-?" the young zit faced recruit gasped.

"Yeah, you passed. Drooling like a baby teething and coughing like a ninety year old COPD-er's completely allowable at this stage of the game. Failing this station constitutes blacking out within the first two minutes. You were exposed for three and stayed alert the whole time. But,..we held ya in there a little bit longer for a reason. Now do you see the merit of knowing how to hook up your air bottle and its regulator's connections with your eyes closed in complete and total darkness?"

The violently hacking cadet nodded eagerly. "Y-yes, sir. *cough* !"

"Good. Now suck this in nice and easy while I listen to ya clean out your lungs." said Johnny, opening the cadet's shirt and donning a stethoscope. "If ya gotta puke, let me know. I got a garbage can right here." Johnny told the flushed teenager as he firmly pressed a spare resuscitator's mask against the young man's face. The man jerked,  
still on high adrenaline. Gage instantly reassured him. "This is on pull only, ok? It won't bite ya. So just relax. The test's over. You did a good job in there. I'm proud of ya." Gage praised, patting the trembling man's arm. With his other hand, he waved Chet over to his side after he had finished thoroughly checking out a set of breath sounds. He rose to his feet in a pretend grab for a spare oxygen tank from the table behind him.

Speaking low, he leaned into Kelly's ear. "Once Miller calms down, walk him over to the first aid station's canteen and get him to drink a lot of water. It's a distraction. I want him to not see me going through his duffle bag."

"Uh, oh. Think another one's hiding an inhaler and a history?" asked Chet.

"Unfortunately, yeah. I can smell Albuterol on his breath."

"Too bad he doesn't know he's gonna be rejected from the Academy not for being an asthmatic, but for denying that he was one on his application form in the first place." Kelly murmured.

"Some day, they'll learn." Gage sighed sadly.

"Are you the one who's gonna be the one to break it to him?"

"Nooo... Geesh, Chet. Do I look like I'm wearing a white helmet here?  
That's administrator's sh*t duty. I'm just a probie barker with bandaids."

"Nice bullwhip, too." Kelly said, eyeing up the defibrillator that Johnny had on stand by underneath the chair. "You put that where they'd notice it intentionally, didn't you?"

"Of course. Had to reassure them somehow that every precaution's being taken while we torture them into becoming prime fire fighting material.." Johnny quipped with a lop sided smile. "That's the only way I know how, at least,  
being a paramedic and all." he chuckled.

"It worked. Those guys were all ears and concentrating so hard, they never even heard the whoopie cushion I snuck underneath the chief's chair pad."

"You did what?!" Gage gaped incredulously. "You didn't.."

"He didn't know it was me... No one but A-shift knows who the Phantom is.  
Aren't I sneaky?"

"Hate to be you when you get caught. Page's got a lot of fans who'll be happy to pound you into hamburger for doing that kind of teasing to him."

"The chief doesn't mind." Chet sighed. Then he shrugged, reconsidering.  
"...Most likely. He probably just laughed, thinking that my idea was a good way to blow off some cadet nervousness by lightening things up a little." Chet shared. "Want him on an EKG?" asked Kelly, studying the recovering Miller.

"Nah, his rate's already going down." Gage sniffed, watching the bounding pulse point in the tired recruit's neck from where they were. "You know, you're making a pretty good EMT here. Perhaps you should get your rear into the next paramedic class and see what you can really d--"

"No way.. I saw how you two monkeys drilled Ed Marlowe to death in between calls this spring." Chet complained sarcastically.

"That was only because he was making too many dangerous choices, Chet."

"Oh, and I wouldn't?" Kelly asked him seriously. "Don't you remember? I'm the one who took five whole hours to pick up even the most basic CPR skills good enough to pass the test."

"Maybe.." Gage squinted in mock appraisal. "But now, you're the best child resuscitator our station's ever seen. You got the highest pre-defibrillator viability ratio of all of us put together. I know. I've been keeping track of how many are actually saved after you've had a chance to work 'em."

"That's just because I hate kids dying right in front of me all the time." Chet grinned. "I just want them to make it, that's all. Nothing spectacular."

"Yeah, well. You just let us go right on admiring your miraculous skills for ya, ok? Just knowing what you're capable of past the joking department makes us all smile real big whenever we find we're down about going to another child arrest call." Gage told him warmly with seriousness.

"I'm a fireman, not an icon. And don't you forget that, you hear?" Kelly said in embarrassment, turning gruff in self defense as he made a hasty departure back over to Miller's chair in order to follow Johnny's orders.

Gage watched him go with mild affection. Then his thoughts turned to other angles. ::Huh. I wonder how Roy's making out..:: he thought to himself as he turned his eyes up to the training tower.

It was just beginning to smoke at the very top story as the live fire drill exercise began in earnest.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Gage and Chet talking outside.

Photo: Chet working a child CPR call.

Photo: An exhausted man on oxygen.

Photo: Recruits climbing a fire tower.

Photo: Roy looking sooty in a close up.

*  
From : "patti keiper" Sent : Wednesday, August 30, 2006 4:40 PM Subject : The Daring Do..

Roy grinned at his partner. "So, how'd it go?" he smiled, eager for Gage's news about his teaching session.

"We're down two. And it's not because of the smoke.." Johnny frowned miserably.

Roy bit his lip after sucking in his breath in sympathy.  
"Oh, don't tell me. You found a couple of recruits lying about pre-existing medical conditions?" DeSoto nodded when Johnny began studying the ground without answering.  
"I don't think I'd enjoy discovering that kind of thing either. I'd rather get soaking wet jumping out of a helicopter into a polluted harbor than deal with that."  
"That's what I told Chet, too. Well, ...not in so many words but.."

"I get the picture, Junior. Try not to think about it so much. What's done is done. Ready for another rocky bout with baby faced cadets feeling their nerves again?" Roy asked.

"Don't I have a choice this time?" Gage insisted passionately, rubbing the sooty sweat off of his brow. "Man, I can't wait until the day I make captain. Then I won't have to kiss up to battalion chiefs mandating last minute orders to teach at the... Hi, Chief..." Johnny brightened as he spied the tall lanky Page striding towards them from around the corner of the squad.

Chief Page calmly made his way over to Roy and Gage where they were putting away some small tools from their demonstration stations. "The perimeter's set.  
Marlowe and Stoker, Stephens and Conrad are ready with hot aerials on engines 501 and 22. Gage, any casualties to report from the smokehouse exercise?"

Johnny winced at the question. "No physical ones due to injuries, sir. But I've these two concerning paperwork discrepancies. All the deciding details are in my instructor notes being held by the quartermaster." he sighed,  
handing over two metal id jacket tags that he had pocketed earlier.

"Oh." said Jim, immediately understanding. "I'll take your passed buck. I'm sorry you had the weight of that on your shoulders all morning. I had a bunch of politicians visiting who wanted to see the facilities in close action."

"So did we get more funding in trade for that wonderful fact filled tour you conducted, sir?" Roy asked Page.

"Yep. We've another year's cadet training completely paid for. That and we've finally filled the price tag for 36's new engine and squad. I just commissioned those a few minutes ago from our manufacturers."

"Then it was well worth it sitting on all the bad news about these two cadets then." said Johnny, smiling and taking the chief's hand as he accepted Page's heartfelt apology.

Jim sighed, pushing his white helmet up a little higher on his bald head. "Ok, DeSoto. I gave the word a minute ago to torch the tower. Hank's in position with his ten recruits on tower level eight east. Ready to create a snafu for them over HT?"

"Yeah.. What shall I pick this time? Roof collapse? Or a lost man?"

"Your choice, Roy. Stanley's set up a couple of dummys ahead of time up there for either scenario." grinned Page cheekily.

"Hmmmm." Roy grinned, rubbing his chin in chuckling consideration.

A loud sputtering pop and answering rumbling vacuum belch startled all three of them where they stood by the squad. An unscheduled fire eruption burst suddenly from the Tower's ninth floor fire escape balcony window.

"What the h*ll?!" Gage muttered as he and Roy whirled around to squint up into the sun at the tower building mockup. Two stories were on fire instead of the usual one that had been originally planned to burn on the floor directly above the cadet group. The second one that had just exploded, was floor seven east, just below the rookie group, putting them in tremendous danger.

The chief immediately got on radio. "Page to Stanley. Report..." he said, turning his gaze to the control house where the explosive charge controls were set.  
Inside the glassed off hut, he could see a confused anxious milling as technicians rushed to figure out what had happened.

Static met their ears..buzzing and chaotic. Then,.. ##.--mergency! Premature charge! Premature charge! Abort! Abort!## came Hank Stanley's order from inside the Tower through the muffled glass of a scba mask. Flames' noise behind his voice was far too loud for safety's sake. ## I've a separated air bottle-less man.  
He ran into the direction of west and north!##

Page and others began running towards the two stationing engines encircling the burning practice tower with fully charged hoses.

Another explosion of incendiary wired tagboard erupted into fire on eight east and a rectangular black object blew out the window at high velocity. It was a white striped HT they all recognized, it had been blown clear out of Hank's gloved hand along with large splinters of balsa wood, light aluminum and teak.

"Look out!" Page shouted at the hosemen at the foot of the tower. "Debris fall!" the chief yelled into his own hand held.

51's captain's radio arched down in a tumble and shattered at their feet with a resounding crack onto the concrete. Then, as if in mockery, the Academy's elegant minature repeater tower was struck by fire and it groaned as it began to lean towards the burning floors when one of its support wires began stretching from the heat.

The Battalion Chief began barking.  
"Gage, DeSoto. Get with Engine 501. Mount up an aerial with belts!" Page ordered,  
running to catch a glimpse of the north side of the building. "That panicked cadet may have--"

## Code I ! I've a jumper fallen on a ledge! ## shouted Ed Marlowe over the main channel from the control foot of his fire engine. He gestured, pointing up. And he was already swinging the boom of 501's extended ladder through a thick column of smoke to something only he could see.

Stoker's face paled. ## We can't reach over there, the toppled radio antennae's in the way.## he said into an handy talkie to the other engine. ## Engine 22. Have you sufficient clear air for a good touchdown?##

## In a mic! Repositioning now! ##

"I can't wait for them..." growled Marlowe, tightening his helmet strap. "We don't HAVE a minute!"

Grabbing a coil of rope, Ed began climbing the ladder Mike Stoker had locked off as close to the eighth floor as he dared. Gage was close behind him.

Roy followed with another line, and four air bottles. "Get a stokes ready! After we get this guy down, we'll go in after the others!" he shouted to Page.

The chief nodded, already speaking, using the engine's dash radio to notify L.A. about a possible mass casualty incident at the training center.

Gage and Marlowe got to the top and collapsed into the basket to catch their breaths.

They could see their victim. The panicked cadet had stripped out of his turnout jacket and he was partially dangling over the edge of a mock scaffolding platform, his booted feet banging painfully against the tower's seventh floor balcony in the wind. He wasn't moving.

"He's gonna get knocked off.." Marlowe said, tying a rope off in a quick knot on the bottom railing of the aerial basket. The other end was netted around his waist and hips in a peculiar kind of lattice rig. "I'm gonna swing over there. Steady me..!" Ed shouted back at Gage as he stood up on the basket's raised motor housing and balanced himself there precariously with outstretched arms.

Then he raised them above his head and shoulders precisely, like a swimming pool diver about to jump.

"Marlowe, no!" Gage gasped, realizing what he was about to do next.

Ed Marlowe leaped off, like a bungee thrill seeker, straight down into the rising black smoke in a plummeting swan dive.

Johnny felt stunned and let go of the grip he had on Ed's rope's slacked coils just in the nick of time before it jerked taut with snapping strain.

The aerial basket and topmost ladder section acted like a springing flagpole, cushioning Marlowe's weight when he hit the end of his rope a second later. Johnny was jolted sidewise as the ladder's rigid length compensated in back oscillation like a tree branch swaying sickeningly in a high wind.

Grunting, Johnny threw himself forward, grabbing Marlowe's rope in between his gloves, and then he began to swing it like a pendulum, back and forth, until he heard a shout from the invisible Marlowe somewhere below him.

"I'm there! I got him!" cried Ed.

Looking down, Johnny could see Marlowe hauling the cadet by the back of his blue shirt jacket and pants up into his arms. "Is he alive?!"

"Yeah.. Good thing I didn't wait any longer than I had to. He almost slipped off over the edge on me." Ed told him. "He's out cold.."

"Do you need a pair of air bottles down there?"

"Nah, the wind's blowing all the smoke away ok where we are. Just get Roy lowered down here with a C-collar and a stokes. I think he landed on his head. He's gonna need an airway a.s.a.p."

"All right. Hang on a sec. He's almost caught up to us." shouted Johnny,  
grinning with relieved tension despite himself.

Roy soon reached the basket, huffing from the weight of four air bottles.  
Three of them, were slung on his arms. "Where's Marlowe?!" he asked in shock.

Gage pointed down, shouting over the wind and the sound of the emergency hooter blasting over the intercom from the training building. "He's down there with our missing man."

"I didn't see him rappel down." he said defensively.

"He didn't climb down one inch, partner.." Johnny grinned at him.  
"He dove down....like Mark Spitz."

"Huh? Johnny, that didn't make any sense." Roy puzzled.

"Never mind. Just gimme that stokes line." Johnny coughed, getting down to business. "You're going to go down two stories and shift over to the left towards eleven o'clock. That's where they are."

"I don't see anything.." said Roy, peering down through the choking smoke rising up towards them. He put his legs over the edge as he sat down on the basket's floor through the open gate.

"Neither did he, that nasty little show off. But I'll tell you one thing.  
He's sure got the b*lls for the engine basketing business."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Soon, Roy was at Marlowe's side. "How's he doing?"

"He's breathing. And the goose egg's tiny. No skull fracture."  
Ed said of the unconscious cadet. "Am I allowed to collar him even though I'm not a paramedic?"

"Sorry." Roy grinned. "You'd better let me do that part. But with your officially valid CPR training, you can insert an OPA without me having to hold your hand." he teased. "Here." he said, passing over a crescent shaped oral airway to Ed from his pocket kit. Then he got on the radio. ##Chief. We got him. As soon as he's on the way down in the bucket with Marlowe, Johnny and I will enter the Tower after the cadet group. ## ::And Cap.:: fretted DeSoto privately.

##Roger, we've got an ambulance and paramedics standing by#  
said Page.

"So, you think I'll get pointed for recklessness?" Marlowe growled in self conscious ire.

DeSoto looked up in surprise and it was not because of Ed's abrasive attitude."Not this time, Ed. Only Johnny saw what you did. And he's not gonna talk about it to anyone else but me." Roy smiled. "I think he's finally rated you a hero in his book. At least, for today..." he grinned.

"That's good enough for me, DeSoto." said Ed thoughtfully as they worked to immobilize their patient. "Can I be frank and admit something personal to you, Roy?"

"Sure." blinked DeSoto, he kept his face passively kind when he finally looked up again.

Ed sighed deeply as he strapped the stoke's belts in tight around the cadet's shoulders, waist and legs. "All I've ever wanted from any of you guys was to find a niche for myself in the fire department with folks that felt comfortable. As a paramedic trainee, I felt too much like the odd man out. I felt like a ...a...Viet Nam flavored rebel medic black sheep or something else just as empathetically unsavory."

"Ed, I think you've definitely found a home for yourself this time. You're a a natural born fire engineer. I don't think even Stoker knew an extended aerial could handle a roped in free fall leap like the one you took to save this man."

"He didn't?"

"Nope." Roy grinned, taking a respirations count on their victim.

"That's incredible!" Ed exclaimed as he finished tying off the pulley rope carabiners to the ladder bucket's cross carrying line.

"I'm afraid you took the words right out of Johnny Gage's mouth, Ed."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chet Kelly made for the stairs of the Tower as fast as he could run. Behind him,  
he felt Marco and his anchor man cover him with a liberal soaking of hose water which wet down his tan overjacket thoroughly. ::What's going on in there? Cap, where are you?:: he worried in his head.

Immediately, on the third floor stair landing, he began to encounter smoke that should never have been there.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Battalion Chief Page talking to Roy and Johnny near the squad.

Photo: Roy and Johnny looking up in shock at something behind them.

Photo: Johnny close up climbing.

Photo: Roy climbing an engine ladder.

Photo: An aerial ladder reaching a training tower.

Photo: Fire cadet down on a scaffolding.

Photo: Ed Marlowe pulling a fireman to safety.

Photo: Engine 501 at the Fire Academy.

Photo: Gage with ropes sitting on a ladder bucket's rail.

Photo: Roy and Ed Marlowe with a stokes.

Photo: A firecrew clustered around a pair of charged hoses.

Photo: A helmeted Chet Kelly moving in darkness.

*  
From : patti keiper Sent : Thursday, August 31, 2006 1:30 PM Subject : The Wheat from the Chaff..

Chet Kelly put on his mask as he made sure his air bottle was patent. He quickly felt Marco Lopez tap him on the back to let him know that they were following him into the Tower as cover.

::Smoke's down here? In an all cement building? Now I wonder what would cause that? In every manual I've ever read, smoke always rises...:: he thought quickly. Then he had it. Chet no sooner thought about it when his HT was in his gloved hand. "Kelly and Team Two entering Tower east to Battalion One!"

##Go, Team Two.##

"I've a working theory! Get some men on the roof and check the top ventilators. I think something's blocking them. We've spill back in all the stairways down to the third level." Chet told the chief.  
"Excessive heat could have set off all the planted fire starters early."

##We've been thinking along those same lines, 51. Keep me updated on your search. We've an infrared crew on the way in with you on your tail and a problem crew on the way up 22's aerial to check out the roof vent theory.## Page replied.

"10-4." said Chet as he reburied his handy talkie into a jacket pocket.

::Come on, Cap. You knew your group was near the roof. It's not like any floors are gonna collapse here. This Tower's built more solid than Fort Knox. The only thing wood in here are the thin boards coating the concrete walls and ceiling which we stapled up real nice with open gaps large enough for the fire to breathe through. Where are you taking all the grunts? You're sure not coming down my way..:: Kelly wondered as he and the others crouched low as they slowly made their way up the east stairwell towards the eighth floor.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Outside, the training chiefs were conferencing rescue plans over the blue prints of this year's Tower design.

Page was deep into the maps. He turned to one of the academy's demolition techs. "You say there were live charges only on floors six through ten?"

"Yes, sir. The budget for this year was limited, we didn't have enough wood fuel in Supplies to light up the whole tower for this session." said the worried man.

"That's a good thing, too." answered Page. "What's this?" he asked pointing to a newly hand markered place on the roof in one corner that wasn't labelled.

"Relief valve, sir. For the manual fire sprinkler system we've been installing."

"Is it in working order?" asked Page.

"Yes, sir. Partially."

"How about these water pipes on Tower East?"

"Not yet, chief. We- we were kinda waiting on more funds to help pay for the finishing work."

"Thank you, boys. That's all we needed to know. It's not your fault the igniters blew. We found a roof vent plugged with spider webs that was the source of all our problem heat. We're sawing it open now." said Page. "All that fire is gonna be, is hot. It won't do much past ceiling flashes and 51's Hank Stanley knows this. He won't let the rest of his cadets lose composure. Not if he can help it. Those men are gonna be just fine if no one else panics in the simulated firestorm mayhem. The only obstacle he failed to surmount was the fact that it happened before he could tell them about it. Return to your station Mr. Brand and completely disarm all demolition charges linking the Tower to the Vulcan hut." Page ordered the demos man.

"Immediately,sir." said the sparky and he soon ran off as fast as his legs could carry him.

Chief Jim Page sighed as he looked at Michael Freeman. "Chief,..is it just me, or do training sessions seem to be getting a little hairier to carry out safely enough every year?"

"It's just you." smiled L.A.'s Commander. "These same cadet accidents aren't happening any more frequently than they usually do." he admitted. "By the way, we just got the preliminary patient status report on that cadet who jumped. He's gonna be fine. He's already on the way to Rampart by ground ambulance. Boy is he lucky someone got there quick enough to prevent him from falling all the way to the ground. Who's the one who made the save?" Freeman wanted to know.

"An Ed Marlowe, an out-of-stater going for his engineer's test next month. His trainer, Stoker from 51's, said that he didn't hesitate taking out all the stops using an aerial ladder to get there in time."

"Really! Hmm. Sounds like he's a very promising candidate. I'll be sure to examine his scores the minute they come in that day myself. I hear Station 110 could use another good tillerman."

"That she can. There's a new state of the art fire engine still without an engineer up there." replied Page.

"Yeah, well. If this man's truly the caliber of firefighter everyone says he is, she won't be lacking one for long." smiled Michael Freeman.

Captain Stanley rapped on another cadet's helmet. "Keep your hose's fan pointed up!" he shouted. "The fire can't reach you if you're pushing it away,  
ok?" he told the frightened man. "You're doing fine. Just keep an eye on your mates on either side of you, all right? We're almost to the complete safety of daylight on the roof at North."

Hank began mumbling as he continued to crawl back and forth between his three groups of clustered cadets along the floor. He made sure they realized that safety lay in the hoses themselves and not in the open windows they could see glowing just beyond them.

The hallway surrounding the training group was still boiling with thick curls of ceiling fire that licked slowly past them. Cap dropped his head a little lower. "Whew..that's hot. Gonna do something about that just as soon as I--"

A scream lanced out from a particularly nervous cadet crawling at his heels.

Captain Stanley whirled and grabbed that one by the shoulders. "Easy.  
What's the problem? Did your bottle run out? Easily fixed. Tandem breathe with your partner, see? He's already holding out his regulator.."

"Ahhh! My leg! It's on fire!" moaned the struggling man.

Four cadets threw themselves on the yelling one, slapping and smothering the cadet's pants legs with their upper bodies and soon, a thick wash of water in a coarse spray from a fire hose doused both of the recruit's flailing lower limbs completely.

"Which one is it, Bates?" asked Hank. "I'm not seeing anything. We got you wet."

"Left one! AhhhHH! I'm burning!"

Captain Stanley pulled up the man's slacks legs and peered at all of his skin closely by firelight. "It was just an ember. You're fine. You've got a tiny mark just above your knee about the size of a pea. Relax, and breathe slow. We'll dress that out after we get outta here. Everything's fine. Don't lose your head. Getting an ember or two inside your shorts's perfectly normal inside a fire." he joked.

The cadets around him chuckled, although still stressed.

Bates bit his lip behind his air mask. "Is Jeff gonna be ok? It was so creepy watching him run off like that.." the gasping man grunted, still holding his leg.

"It's never far to a balcony safety zone. They're all around us. He's probably waiting for a bucket pickup right now and cursing himself for wetting his pants over nothing." Hank told him. "We wanted the fire storm to be thrilling. Only, for some reason, it was set off way too early. Somebody was sleeping in the hut and wasn't listening to our position reports."

"Take away his coffee rations, sir!" shouted a frightened fire recruit to Hank's left.

"Done." said Stanley. "Now, everybody sound off as you enter the stairway.  
There are nine of you, so keep checking on each other as we go. Fire will leap out at you. If it does, just fling down onto your back and cover it with your hoses on wide fan. It'll retreat. It always does." he coached. "Let's go.."

The hallway was thick with smoke and ash, and firesign. The blue orange liquid quality of the burning plasma on the wood attached to the ceiling seemed fascinatingly hypnotic to all of them as they moved carefully past it. It seemed almost alive.

Bates sighed, ignoring his leg at last as he checked his air bottle's regulator one more time. ::This fire's breathing. I can see where its oxygen's coming from. It's right over there.:: the young cadet thought. He pointed a gloved finger up and to the right in the direction from which the upside down fire was crawling. His hoseman capitulated and aimed light water at that spot. A sharp hissing and a flare of yellow rewarded them both.

"That's good. Yep. That's a main streamer foot coming from the fire. See if you can smother it, boys. This hot spot'll suffocate a bit if you bisect that. " encouraged Hank as he helped another cadet into the stairwell that led to the roof. "Hit it for a minute and then hold off and see what happens. You'll be surprised how fast it'll cool off in here after doing that." Hank told them, looking at his watch.  
He noticed that they all had about four minutes of air left in their tanks. ::That's plenty left for making good an escape. This situation's no problem at all anymore:  
Stanley sighed.

The last cadet was crawling past Hank for the dark sanctuary of the solid stairway when the sizzling wired up boards on the ceiling gave way and tumbled down on top of them.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Roy and Johnny entered the Tower.

On orders, they went south with their backing hose team, anticipating Cap's need to reach an uneffected section of the Tower with his raw, frightened cadets before all of their air bottles ran out of breathing room.

Gage followed behind Roy through a tight spot that had been recently watered down. It was still steaming violently in its black sooty grave of puddled grime. "They've been here. We're on the right track.." shouted Johnny.

"He's gotta be ok, looks like he's been giving out lessons." Roy said as he plowed through the drowned fire spot on the floor.

"I can almost see the arrows pointing the way.." joked Johnny with a grin.  
"See? It says.. Gone fishing." he gestured at one particular charcoal splash.

"I think Chet's rubbing off on Cap at least, a little, if what you said's true." smiled Roy.

"I'll take a picture of it for you later to prove it when all this is over."

"Ok, it'll sure be a nice souvenir for the bulletin board by the payphone." DeSoto quipped. "Guess we can slow down a bit then. Looks like nobody's dying this time."

"Amen to that.." said Gage, dropping to his stomach in a more leisurely crawl.

The two paramedics were swallowed in darkness that no longer seemed threatening to them as they completed their chief ordered sweep for more runaway stragglers.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kelly began shouting when his team made east eight. "Cap! Can you hear me?"

A scuffling through the thick smoke to his right made him turn his head. It was Captain Stone, heading the recon crew with the imaging camera. "Kelly, you say he's lost his radio?"

"Yeah, man. It flew out of that window just ahead and nearly clobbered us."  
Kelly told him through the murk.

"Ok, we'll start our sweeps here. Everybody, look under every debris fall blocking your scans. This wood's not heavy but it could pin someone long enough for an air bottle to run out." said Stone.

"Yes, sir.." said the cadet currently handling the infrared camera.  
He aimed it at a random spot along the wall. "There's one! Man down.." he reported. "Just around the bend about five meters."

"Is he moving?" Chet asked him.

"Yeah. I think so. I can see a head and shoulders. Air's only 62 F in there." And he showed Kelly the black and white footage of the thermal activity he was monitoring. "Wait a minute. Looks like some others have found him and are digging him out."

"I see it." said Kelly. Then he looked back at Marco. "Let's get there, going to the right. It's shorter, I think."

"I agree." said Captain Stone. "Men, let's move. Have those spare air bottles ready. Be prepared to hand one out to anyone in trouble, ok.? Help the cadets forcefully into the new ones if necessary if you have to."

"Ok, Cap.." they said.

Soon, they were there.

Bate's trapped feet were holding the stairwell door open and that fed the starving firestorm and gave it new energy. It took a minute or two of attack from the cadets'  
hoses and Marco's to suppress it away from the door's frame.

Chet leaned over Bates. "Are you hurt?" he shouted as he freed the man.

"Not badly. Get me out of here." Bates complained.

"Cap? How about you?" Chet asked, grabbing Hank by the faceplate.

"I'm fine. Just worry about him after getting this woodpile off of us. After we get up there, I'm turning on that new faucet! I've had enough playing for one day." Stanley chuckled.

-  
Once on the roof, he and Stoker had a gay old time opening the emergency drenching valve that drown the whole Tower in a shower of ice cold water.  
"There goes somebody's bathtime down in the city." Stanley joked, remembering the watering ban stipulation in effect for their part of town.

"Glad we flushed, Cap. There's something satisfyingly visceral about killing fire of this scale all at once like that." Stoker said.

"Ain't it though.." sighed Cap as he left the valve open to rain on down through the sprinkler systems below their feet. "Come on, let's go check to see who needs a bucket ride outta here first. I know of at least one cadet who got charred by an ember or two."

"Ok." said Stoker, rubbing a sunburned nose. He lifted his walkie talkie to his mouth. "All personnel are safe and accounted for. Repeat, Tower is empty! And the sprinklers are now active.." he reported to the waiting chiefs on the ground.

##10-4, Bucket 501. First aid personnel are standing by to give final cadet evaluations. We'll wrap up this exercise after lunch.## answered Freeman.

"Freeman? They brought out the big guns for our little cadet accident? I feel so special.." crooned Chet, bringing up the rear.

"All in a day's work, Cap?" said a voice from behind them.

Hank Stanley turned to greet Johnny and Roy as they walked onto the roof from the North stairwell. "You know that for a fact, Johnny."  
he reassured his paramedic.

Roy squinted at a scratch on Cap's cheek. "You got pegged in there by some falling wood." he teased.

"Yeah. First time that's happened in ten years. I feel a little stupid for not watching out for that particular cave-in close enough. I forgot that one was there."

"We'll forgive ya." said Johnny, picking at the wound. "Bates told us you were holding the door open for him when it happened. Can't do two things at once you know."

"A captain's gotta be able to do three, Gage. Never forget that."  
Stanley mock growled.

"I won't." Johnny sniggered. "Anyone here potentially respiratory hurt?"  
he said, growing serious again.

"Nah. Only hair singed. And there's a burned leg on Bates. Very minor. I sent him down first so he can get to some numbing ointment."

"Good enough." nodded Johnny with satisfaction. "I'll use him to train Marco and Chet on hooking up EKGs as soon as we get down ourselves."

A soggy scuffle of dripping turnout and clattering scba gear greeted them. "Cap, can we get outta cleaning up all the Tower messes this year? I'm seriously bushed." complained Chet as he and Marco shed their overjackets and bottles to cool off a bit in the sunny breezes blowing around where they were, ten stories up.

Hank grinned. "I'll see what I can do."

-  
The training day was almost over when Chet Kelly received a priority medical call to the chief's podium platform. ::Oh, no.. did someone drop with a cardiac?::

Kelly hoofed it over there with Johnny's defibrillator pack, full tilt.

What he saw when he got to the first row in front of the whole complement of fully gathered cadets who were seated in their chairs while they waited for the day's debrief, was a pair of cadets doing CPR on an apparently downed female victim. ::One of the lieutenant nurses?:: thought Chet with a shock.

But something was remiss. The lady's head was separated from her body by six whole feet.

It was a resusci-Annie, dismembered temporarily to be entirely the butt of Chief Page's avenging practical joke against Chet. "Way to go, Kelly. That's the way to get the lead out of it." crowed Chief Michael Freeman over the podium's microphone at Chet. He had thoroughly enjoyed watching his colleague in crime, Jim Page organize and fire off his little piece of payback dirt. "How's your heart doing? Ours are doing just fine, Dr. Phantom. Thanks for running for nothing, though. We appreciate it."

Chet set the defib down in front of the two cadets who had tricked him with their bogus CPR and shot off a mock salute to both chiefs still standing on the stage without blushing too badly. He swallowed around his pounding adrenalin rushed pulse rate and tried not to tremble on the surface where everyone could see it.

He eventually made it back to Engine 51 with some honor intact amid all the friendly jeering from all the cadets and the regular firefighters, too. "Ah, well, it was fun while it lasted." he remarked about his two years long stylish history as the infamous Phantom.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ed Marlowe was packing up his bag in Station 51's vehicle bay when Johnny Gage and Chet Kelly saundered up to offer him a mutual pair of goodbyes.

Chet held out his hand to Ed warmly. "Congratulations on making engineer,  
Mr. Marlowe. I'm sure you'll do the mountain fire department proud."

"Thanks, Kelly. That means a whole lot to me." he replied.

Johnny held back a little by the engine, mulling over something. Finally,  
when Chet had departed for the kitchen to watch Roy feed Henry some more sandwiches, he made his peace. "Ed, ah, can I ask you something?  
Uh, it's not of a personal nature or anything. I just want to indulge a little curiosity if you don't mind."

Ed finished zipping up his duffle bag and he straightened up, adjusting his ivory felt cowboy hat a little higher on his head. "Ok, shoot. The two of us are friends now, I hope." he said as he ducked the rim of his hat down in Johnny's direction with a guarded smile.

Gage cleared his throat. "Yeah, we sure are. Where'd uh, where'd you learn to do that bungee jump getup using a hundred footer. I've never seen that particular kind of trick before."

Ed smiled and surprisingly, opened up his bag again. "Same place you did, partner. I learned it from the Big Manual." and he tossed Gage a staple paged packet emblazoned with a bold official fire department title that was very familiar to Johnny from his early days as a rescueman.  
"See you later, man. We'll probably run into each other again at the next big brush fire up at 110's in a month or two. Goodbye, Gage. Stay gold."

And with that, Fireman Marlowe left boldy out the front side garage door after hitting the commit button. He caught a cab in two seconds by flashing his new engineer's badge in the sunlight.

And then, he was gone.

Looking down, Johnny spoke the name of the dogged eared soft cover he still held in his hands.

"Ropes and Knots. I should've figured." he chuckled, watching Ed's cab disappear into the crunch of other autos streaming back and forth along the busy boulevard in front of the station. "I wonder which page that bungee harness diagram is on. I think I got some serious studying to do."

FIN

Emergency Theater Live Episode Thirty Six, Tower Drill

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Cap shouting by a building. Photo: Tower drill ceiling fire.

Photo: Cap with another cap reading a map.

Photo: Gang scba fire inside.

Photo: Roof ventilating.

Photo: Heat imaging screen.

Photo: Fireman with an infrared cam.

Photo: Gage in a basket.

Photo: Gage search in the dark.

Photo: Roy search in the dark.

Photo: Roy and Johnny in a cave-in.

Photo: Gang finds a victim, scba.

Photo: Marco and Chet applying EKG pads.

Photo: Headless CPR joke.

Photo: L..F.D. Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman.

Photo: Ed Marlowe with Chet talking in the bay by engine.

Photo: Ropes and knots manual.

Photo: Gage considering with Roy by engine.  
*************************************************** Emergency Theater Live =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

ETL Hosts : Patti Keiper and Erin James in the United States

** Emergency Theater Live "Offstory" Email Address For Midi Music Requests and General Inquiries . Emergency Theater Live Homepage

.com/group/emergencytheaterlive Writer's Pre-Production Distribution Site

.com/emergencyfans Emergency Theater Live /Emergency Fans Unite at MySpace

ETL's Emergency Community Forum /

____________________________________

Mark VII Productions, NBC, and Universal owns all of Emergency! and its Characters. 2009 . All rights reserved.

=========================

***NOTE: All author writings submitted to the theater will be set free onto the web to reach as many readers as we can manage to find. Contributing to any ETL episode means that has permission to publish your work in the manner presented here on this website and on text versions of the stories on other sites. All web audience writers or volunteer consultants and their corresponding emails will be duly recorded and left in place within each show's music and imaged airing episode, pointing out that fan or professional EMS personnel's creative contribution. Theater Host- Emergency Theater Live! .. 


End file.
